Saturday, July 17, 2010

I'm a Mean Person


I'm sure that at some point in near future, I'll have the equanimity to coherently discuss everything that went wrong with Christopher Nolan's trainwreck of a blockbuster Inception, but with my ass still numb and my eyes still stuck in "roll," all I can think of is how many similar movies I would rather have spent those 2 1/2 hours on. So, save your $10, Torrent these.


eXistenZ -- A delirious dream-within-dream-within-dream by a director (David Cronenberg) who has the good sense to cap the whole affair at 90 minutes.

Raising Cain --
An insanely fun dream-within-dream-within-dream that gleefully wrecks its own fragile coherence rather than tortuously maintaining it.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus -- An equally convoluted dreamscape, just as devoid of intelligence, emotion, and genuine philosophy, but by a director (Terry Gilliam) who still innately understands visual fantasy.

demonlover -- A surreal techno-capitalist heist with some freaking context.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
-- Tortured romance and breathtaking low-fi-sci-fi interwoven properly, rather than the former awkwardly shoehorned into the latter.

Synechdoche, New York --
A megalomaniac shell game, but one whose frustrated, ambitious heart actually makes you care.

Catch Me If You Can -- An actually relevant opening flash-forward to a disoriented Leo being dragged places.

Batman Begins -- A halfway watchable Nolan-directed vehicle for Cillian Murphy's eyes and Michael Caine's accent.

Inland Empire --
A legitimately experimental work in which surrender to the moment at expense of the infrastructure is the point, rather than a frustrated capitulation.

Shutter Island --
A marginally more tolerable ludicrously extended third-act flashback about Leo, his dead wife, and their adorable moppets.

The Matrix Reloaded -- A better movie.

2 comments:

  1. That last one is really harsh. Haven't seen it yet so no idea whether I agree or not.

    Also, the best Chris Nolan movie is Memento, so that should obv be your recommendation instead of BB.

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  2. Hah, it's pretty harsh, yeah; but then, I didn't hate Reloaded quite to the extent most did. I agree that Memento is Nolan's best, but the Murphy and Caine comparison struck me first.

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